


"Snow"

by winterune



Category: Dororo (Anime 2019)
Genre: Family, Gen, hyakkimaru learning a new word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterune/pseuds/winterune
Summary: Winter has arrived. On Hyakkimaru's first encounter with snow, he remembers the first time Jukai taught him the word.
Relationships: Hyakkimaru & Jukai (Dororo)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	"Snow"

**Author's Note:**

> My first Dororo fic :) Hope you enjoy reading it!

The word ‘snow’ sprang to his mind when Hyakkimaru beheld the flurry of white substance falling from the sky. Like crystallized rain. Soft like cotton, but also hard like ice. It prickled his skin as it landed on his face. Cold to the touch. 

Hyakkimaru’s breath clouded over as he lifted his face toward the gray sky. Bare branches criss-crossed over his vision, black against the eternal whiteness. When he held up a hand, soft flakes landed on his upturned palm. The ice melted the moment it touched his warm skin. 

_Snow…_

“You’re going up the mountain?” a woman at the last village he’d visited had asked. She had looked at him with an expression he had come to learn as incredulity. At his blank, uncomprehending stare, the woman had gone on, “Not with those clothes, you won’t.” She had then sold him thick woolen cloak and thick, warm clothes, with a pair of boots thrown among them. What money Hyakkimaru had brought with him was quickly reduced by half. The woman had an ear-to-ear grin plastered across her face as he turned and left, saying, “You’ll thank me later!” to his back. 

The woman was right. Standing amidst leafless trees, his feet almost ankle-deep into the thick layer of snow, the cold stung his face and his exposed hands. Now that his senses were back, Hyakkimaru wondered if he would have survived had he gone on in his usual clothes—a thin kimono wrapped around his body and tied in place by a long piece of cotton. Not that his current clothes were enough to ward off the chill either. The hair on his skin already stood on end and he felt a shiver coming down his spine. Still, Hyakkimaru stayed there with his head turned upwards. If he closed his eyes, would he feel more of the cold? He breathed in a lungful of the frigid air. 

* * *

“Hyakkimaru! Hyakkimaru!” 

Jukai entered his small wooden cottage tucked in the middle of a mountain. A hermit, some had called him. The man living in the woods who only came down to the village once in a blue moon. He had never paid those words any heed, especially now when he had a boy in his home to take care of. 

Hyakkimaru's small body sat cross-legged in front of the fire in the middle of the room. Jukai touched the boy’s shoulder.

“Come, Hyakkimaru. There’s something I want to show you.” 

He grabbed Hyakkimaru’s hand and lifted the boy to his feet. The boy’s prosthetic feet moved with a clickety-clack against the wooden floor as he followed Jukai out of the house. They stopped in the middle of the clearing, and Jukai lifted his face and outstretched his hand at the flurry of white raining from the sky. 

“They’re called snow, Hyakkimaru,” he said. 

The boy wordlessly looked up. Short jet-black hair framed his round face, the bangs were long enough to cover one side of his face. His brown eyes were unblinking as he stared at the snow falling through the criss-crossing branches of the trees. A flake landed on his cheek, but Hyakkimaru showed no reaction that he had felt it. 

Jukai’s lips pulled into a taut line. He searched the ground and spotted a stick. He picked it up, then crouched in front of the boy. “It’s called snow,” he said again, drawing the letter ‘snow’ on the ground. Hyakkimaru crouched down and moved his finger over the narrow dip, following the contour of the letter. “Snow,” Jukai repeated. 

Hyakkimaru shifted his hand to the side and pressed his forefinger into the dirt. He moved his finger in a horizontal line to the right, followed by a short vertical line on the left side beneath it. Jukai watched as the boy copied his letter, the writing sloppy and awkward, but when he finished, Hyakkimaru looked up, and Jukai wondered if the boy would have smiled or laughed if he had the ability to do so. Tears pricked his eyes. His lips parted into a small wistful smile. 

“Right. That reads ‘snow’. If it touches your skin, it’s cold.”

Jukai drew the letter for ‘cold’, then followed it with the letter for ‘white’. The boy had nothing to understand the world. He had no eyes and no ears. He had no voice, nor the sense of touch. All his limbs were prosthetic and even his face was covered by a mask. 

Yet the boy could “see”, in the way a person who had nothing could see. His movements were agile, and he picked up the way of the sword quicker than any child Jukai had seen. He had a keen sense in how he knew where everything was without truly seeing. He could walk without tripping over a stone. He could eat without missing his mouth. When the boy trained, he danced with his sword with such fluidity that no one could have guessed he was blind and deaf. 

Hyakkimaru finished copying the letters. He looked up again with that unblinking stare, as if he could see through his prosthetic unseeing eyes. 

Jukai’s smile grew, and he patted Hyakkimaru’s head, giving the boy's hair a gentle tousle. “Right,” he said. “The snow is white, and it’s cold.” It wasn't a perfect method—there was no way to know if Hyakkimaru understood what he wrote—but from the moment Jukai saw the boy copy his letterings on the ground after he gave him his name, he realized it might be a way to show Hyakkimaru the world.

* * *

“Snow.”

Hyakkimaru tested the foreign word in his mouth, letting it roll off his tongue. It felt strange, yet familiar. He had never said it, but it was as though he had known the word by heart, like all the other words Jukai had taught him. As though someone had whispered it to him countless times even when his ears were unhearing. 

A small pile of snow had formed on his palm, his hair and cloak now dusted in a thin layer of white. He brought his hand to his face and took a sniff. Nothing but the chill air greeted his nostrils. His tongue darted out and gave the snow a quick lick. It tasted like a pile of salty ice. Hyakkimaru cringed. His hand shivering from holding the ice too long, he let the snow fall, then brushed his hand against his cloak. 

It had always seemed like Jukai wanted to show him something. Every time the air current changed or when the fire at the house blazed bigger and brighter, he would take Hyakkimaru’s hand and bring him outside. Sometimes, they would just sit in front of the house and stay there for hours. Other times, Jukai would grab another stick and introduce Hyakkimaru to new words. As Hyakkimaru lifted his face once more and watched snow swirl down from the sky, one such word surfaced from the back of his mind: “beautiful”. 

_The snow looks beautiful, Hyakkimaru_. 

His surrogate father had probably said it once upon a time. 

**~ END ~**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it :) Please leave kudos/comments if you find the fic to your liking. Thank you! ^_^


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